Omar Sultan

Omar Sultan's Blog I was chatting with a customer the other day who was struggling with some of the implications of cloud computing. The analogy that finally made sense to them is what I will call 'cloud dining.'  I am the cook in the house and I am tasked with feeding the family. If my 10-year old is lobbying for Italian, I am cook at home or order out. The decision may also vary from day to day. For instance, I might not have all the ingredients and have to order out, or, like this weekend, it may be 103 outside and cooking at home is not all that appealing. Now, the same can be said for supporting a given application in a cloud computing environment. In a fully implemented Data Center 3.0 environment, you can decide if an app is run locally (cook at home), in someone else’s data center (take-out) and you can change your mind on the fly in case you are short on data... (more)

Services in a Cloud Computing Environment

Omar Sultan's Blog Once we cut through the cloud-hype and start looking at the practicalities of implementing things like workload portability, I think the lessons of the past will re-assert themselves, this time with things like security and L4-7 services. Quite a few years ago, when we we positioning the concept of the intelligent network, we had a slide that showed how features moved from servers or dedicated hardware to the the network over time. The trigger was usually when a service, say name resolution, became broadly used. At that point, it was seldom workable to have tha... (more)

Virtualization: Data Centers & The Joy of Lego

Cisco's Data Center Networks Blog During customer briefings, I’ll often use the concept of the Lego data center when talking about the vision behind Data Center 3.0. The joy of Lego (for me at least) is the ability to build something then, (sometimes violently) break it apart and build something else. This is the operational model we look to bring to the data center - sans most of the violence - with Data Center 3.0. Virtualization has a central role in this vision, but asset virtualization introduces its own challenges. Arthur Cole has a recent posting where he notes that ... (more)

Deconstructing Data Center 3.0

Omar Sultan's Blog You may be wondering if there is anything to this “Data Center 3.0” thing beyond some clever marketing folks earning their paychecks. Well, clever marketing folks aside, the name was very explicitly chosen, so lets deconstruct it a bit. First of all, this is not LAN 3.0 or SAN 3.0, but Data Center 3.0. The point is that, looking ahead, you can expect a more holistic approach to Cisco data center solutions. The best example of this is the Data Center Assurance Program—its not just product or feature testing, but full-fledged system integration testing. VFrame Da... (more)